Session
WE.3.D || Life Cycle Management in Education and Culture

Authors
Graf, Roberta; Grönman, Kaisa; Balkenende, Ruud; Danese, Pamela; Holopainen, Jani; Luukkonen, Matti; Nevgi, Anne; Nuortila-Jokinen, Jutta; Olsen, Stig; Sandström, Niclas; Tegazi, Stefano; Tegazi, Stefano

Abstract
The integration of circular economy based life cycle management into product design and optimisation is essential for the transformation towards a circular economy. However, companies often lack the expertise to adapt life-cycle design thinking in their business operations and are in need of respective capacity building. To close this apparent gap is the aim of the project e-CirP (Embedding Circular Economy into Product Design and Optimization) where LUT University, Fraunhofer, Technical University of Denmark, University of Padova, Delft University of Technology, University of Helsinki and Metso Outotec have worked together to develop a program that allows Master students across Europe to learn how to integrate circular economy and Life Cycle Thinking principles into product design by analysing real industrial cases. Companies and students, the professionals of tomorrow, are thus brought together at an early stage. In the e-CirP project, modern pedagogical approaches, such as virtual reality and flipped learning, have been adapted and applied. A modular training package covering general circular economy aspects, as well as detailed value chain perspectives, has been created. Next to the content-related aspects a great focus was also on the support of so called soft-skills development, e.g. through international student cooperation on case studies. During the three year project three academic terms are covered, where two runs have already been completed and evaluated. The presentation will give the consortiums insights as they approach their final phase. It will also showcase the perspective of participating students as well as the cooperating companies that supplied the industry cases to allow an overview of the arising opportunities and challenges. This project is financed by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Raw Materials.